


Flutter

by taskinst



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taskinst/pseuds/taskinst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry finds Niall standing in the middle of the school field in the heart of the rainy season -  wearing nothing but his now transparent summer uniform - and chooses to intervene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flutter

**Author's Note:**

> The song kind of used is Ed Sheeran's Wake Me Up.

_But maybe I’m just in love when you wake me up_

* * *

 

Heavy water droplets pounding against dark asphalt – that was the only sound in the air as we sat side by side, the distance between us slowly becoming negative.

He was still shivering – I could feel his subtle quivers as he sat beside me, clutching on to the school blazer I lent him which he threw over his bare shoulders. He had simply been standing in the rain when I found him, soaked and dripping, his white school shirt transparent but his skin so pale it was almost blue.  I was sure I could see the goose bumps all over his body through the wet fabric.

His lips had been purple then, and his eyes were closed as he faced the dark cloudy sky. The large water droplets hit his face and slid down the side of his cheeks. Some collected at the ends of his lashes until they got too heavy to stay and had no choice but to fall.  

I didn’t know why he was standing out in the middle of the school field in nothing but his school uniform during what could possibly be torrential rain during the rainy season, and I didn’t know why I felt the need to intervene.

I had taken him to the school gym first – it was the closest place indoors from the field and being the captain of the badminton team I had the keys to the facility. School had ended hours ago and everybody had hurried home after the news of torrential rain.

He seemed out of it, maybe he was too cold – so I simply sat him down by the wall and closed the door. After turning on the lights, I could finally see exactly how pale he was and how blue his lips were. He looked like he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all because it was that transparent. The fabric of his grey school pants clung uncomfortably to his thin legs and water dripped continuously from the hem. His normally light blond hair was now a dull brown from the dampness and laid flat on his head, several strands clinging onto his forehead.

“We need to get you out of your wet clothes,” I decided. I kneeled down beside him and began unbuttoning his shirt. He let me do it for him, his hands slack to either side of his body as he attempted to regain his body warmth. “Why on earth were you standing out in the field in such weather?” I asked more to myself than to him, because I knew he wasn’t going to answer me.

His skin was ice cold to the touch – such a thought flashed across my mind as my fingers brushed across his chest. I think both of us might have stopped breathing in that moment, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he had died or if my mind was simply getting ahead of me. When I finally got him out of his wet clothes, having struggled to remove his wet pants, too, he was left to sit in his boxers, still shivering and blue. I removed the blazer I was wearing and placed it awkwardly over his bare body – still damp, moisture clinging to every inch of skin.

He had opened his eyes then. I was met with brilliant blue, not at all dulled from the cold and in fact all the more bright in contrast to his now deathly pale complexion. He gripped the blazer I placed over him and threw it over his shoulders. He wrapped it around his body and sighed from the warmth.

Bending his legs so they would fit beneath the blazer too, he got himself in a comfortable sitting position as he slowly warmed up. I was standing a few feet away awkwardly watching him.

It was a bit strange because then he looked up at me with his wide blue eyes and he kind of smiled – maybe, if the lift of the corners of his lips counted. But I’d known a much wider smile before so I wasn’t sure if this one counted as a smile too. He looked oddly peaceful, like we were somehow old friends and he was comfortable in my presence, naked save for his boxers and a too-large blazer draped over his thin shoulders.

“Thanks,” he said quietly before tearing his eyes away from mine and staring at the floor. The small smile remained even though the moment was over.

I almost couldn’t believe, then, that this was the boy that I hated for no reason all my life and avoided at all costs.

Why did I care that he wanted to stand in the rain by himself and freeze to death anyway?

I took out my phone, then – to call for help. He might need to go to the hospital to get a check-up after all. I was about to press ‘dial’ when I saw from the corner of my eye – him reaching an arm out from underneath my blazer signaling for me to stop. I didn’t know how I understood him then, maybe it was something about the look in his eye, the panic, or the stern way he laid his palm flat towards me.

_Don’t._

I put my phone back in my pocket. Instead of calling for help, my legs brought me next to him and I sat down beside him. The silence stretched on and the rain continued to fall outside.

Tentatively I reached out and slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. He turned to me, a surprised look on his face, before letting my arm guide him closer. He laid his head on my shoulder then – his blond hairs tickling my chin. He was smaller than I expected – his shoulders were skinny and narrow, but not to the point of being fragile. He managed to wrap himself up snuggly in my blazer, which, despite being too big for him, shouldn’t be able to wrap a teenage boy up like that.

“Why are you helping me?” he asked then. But I didn’t know why, because all my life I had thought that I hated Niall Horan, but now I just couldn’t fathom why.

“Why were you standing in the rain?” I replied with another question. I could feel him shrug beside me.

 

* * *

 

We were quiet again, listening to the pounding rain as bad weather continued on outside. It felt like we were in a different world all together. It felt like we were in our own world, just me and Niall.

“Harry,” he suddenly spoke. I had never heard my name roll off his tongue with such conviction. It caught my attention and I turned towards him, only to be met with his face far too close to mine. I could feel his breath on my lips as he looked up at me. There was warmth in his eyes despite his body – still cold from the rain. His eyelashes fluttered prettily as he closed his eyes to blink and slowly opened them again to reveal his clear blues dotted with specks of gold.

_What?_  I could feel myself ask but the thought never quite made itself heard.  The air stilled around us and I had the most ridiculous urge to lean closer just to see what would happen, but I didn’t and we were just as suspended as our surroundings were.

And then my world started going  _backwards_  when he leaned in and—

I think I had flashes of our memories together then. All the bad and the… worse. I felt stupid then, to have disliked him all these years and not having been able to see him for who he was. Yet here we were right now, in the gym, closer than ever, and he kissed me and I didn’t know why he did or what I did to deserve it.

When I leaned in too and placed a hand on the back of his head to pull him even closer, I realized that I never hated him and maybe deep down this had always been what I wanted. And maybe, then, I resented that I thought I could never have it.

 

* * *

 

He leaned close and brushed my curly brown hair away from the side of my face

“Today is the seventh anniversary of my parents’ death,” he whispered into my ear. I felt like he had told me everything then – quietly, like I was the only person in this whole entire world he let close to him like that.

 

* * *

 

“I never hated you,” I said, a little loudly. My voice echoed through the walls of the gym. But I didn’t care who heard me.

“No, no, never,” he replied, equally as clearly as I. Then he buried his head into my shoulder, and I could feel his warm breath against my neck. It seemed to be a habit of his, something he enjoyed doing. I could get used to it.

 

* * *

 

_You will never know just how beautiful you are to me_


End file.
